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"Don't
stay up late, it's not worth it," Bob Wilkins warned
as he leaned back in his yellow rocking chair, smoke wafting
from his big cigar. But monster movie fans in Northern California
stayed up with him every Saturday night anyway. Creature Features
made it's debut on Channel 2 (KTVU) in 1971, and was an immediate
success with it's grade- Z horror films and Bob's dry sense
of humor. His cool, low-key deadpan helped him rise above
it all, elevating films like The Navy Vs. The Night Monsters
as well.
Bob once remarked,
"We kicked off this show with Horror of Party Beach,
and we knew we had our work cut out for us that night . .
. and it seems it's been that way every Saturday night."
Actually,
many of the films were pretty good, and his guests were even
better: Ray Harryhausen, Christopher Lee, William Shatner,
Leonard Nimoy, John Landis, William Marshall, Forest J Ackerman
and . . . well, too many to list. You never knew who (or what)
you'd see next on Creature Features. There was an endless
parade of the weird: People who claimed to be witches and
martians, inventors who built robots, a woman who knitted
a sweater for King Kong, local filmmakers who showed bizzare
TV commercial take-offs. Once, Bob received a phone call from
a man claiming to be a vampire. When he asked if he could
be a guest, Bob said "Sure, can you come down to the
studio at two o'clock tomorrow afternoon?" When
the caller said yes, he could, Bob replied, "If you're
a vampire, how is it you can be there at 2 p.m.?"
There was a pause, then 'click'. The vampire hung up.
The show quickly
expanded to a double feature format and Bob even joined the
Channel 2 eleven o'clock news as the weatherman. All of this
while he continued his weekly show in Sacramento (on KXTL
Channel 40). After two years though, he decided that reporting
the weather wasn't for him, and Pat (Dialing for Dollars)
McCormick took over. We know that Bob inspired viewers (one
of them being George Lucas) to get into sci-fi films. Who
knows? Maybe his stint as the weatherman helped inspire Lloyd
Lindsay Young.
In 1977, Bob went
incognito for Captain Cosmic, a half hour kid's show specializing
in Japanese sci-fi . "I was disguised," Bob said,
"I had a cape on and a helmet that covered my face, so
you couldn't tell who I was. But of course, by the voice people
knew it was me. The younger kids didn't know who it was because
they couldn't stay up late at night and watch the horror movies."
With his trusty sidekick, Robot 2T2, Captain Cosmic made the
galaxy safe for kids every afternoon at 4:30. After 2 years,
Bob Wilkins grew tired of the show, and he was tired of Creature
Features as well.
Keep in mind,
Bob not only wrote and produced the shows, he also lined up
the guests, answered the fan mail, and made public appearances.
So in 1978, when the demands of doing two shows in Oakland
and one in Sacramento got to be too much, Bob left Channel
2. (But really, how many times can you suffer through a double
bill of Billy the Kid Vs. Dracula and Jesse James Meets Frankentein's
Daughter anyway?) Bob's replacement on Creature Features was
John Stanley, frequent guest.and author of "The Creature
Feature Movie Guide"
Luckily, for Sacramento
viewers Bob continued his Saturday night show on Channel 40
until 1982.
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